ZimTrade embarks on more trade promotion events

Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter

ZIMTRADE will carry out various trade promotion events in new markets this year as part of the country’s efforts to grow exports in line with the Exports Growth Strategy, the organisation’s chief executive officer, Mr Allan Majuru, has said.

In an interview on the sidelines of a meeting with Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade to familiarise themselves with the organisation’s activities, Mr Majuru said last year, they did trade promotion events with Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal.

“These are markets that are not traditional to us but we want them to come to the fore,” said Mr Majuru.

“If we look at this year, we are going to do market scans in Saudi Arabia, as you know, last year, His Excellency (President Mnangagwa) managed to attend the Arab-Africa Summit where a lot of leads were made; so we want to follow through on the same.

“We also want to do market scans in Indonesia and also Ethiopia because in Ethiopia we are saying there’s an opportunity, there are planes moving and what are we taking there in terms of cargo?

“So, we want to explore opportunities that are coming from there, so these are our focus areas but we will also maintain our traditional markets like Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, South Africa, the UAE and China, we are going to do a lot of activities there.”

Mr Majuru said they had briefed legislators, especially the new ones, on their mandate and how they have been faring.

“If you look at last year, our exports grew by 10 percent overall but if you look at the manufacturing sector, it grew by 22 percent, which is a good thing. So, the issue is what have we been doing to meet those thresholds in terms of growth?

“Remember the national exports growth strategy mandates us to grow the exports by 10 percent every year and we have managed to grow the manufacturing sector by 22 percent. So, we then alluded to the number of steps that we have taken, especially looking at the clusters and looking at the marginal areas for them to get into the mainstream export business especially through a co-ordinated approach,” he said.

One of ZimTrade’s flagship programmes, the Next She Exporter, is an incubation programme meant to help women-led enterprises get into the mainstream export business. It will have its first graduation ceremony on March 27 for those who completed the training and are already exporting.